The Dutch police have shut down their drone-catching eagle program

Dutch police are retiring their drone-catching eagles due to a combination of performance issues and a lack of need, according to a report from NOS. The eagles were originally deployed as a way to intercept wayward (and potentially dangerous) drones, but training the eagles is reportedly too costly, and the need for them is too low.

Various solutions have been developed to deal with the issue of drones flying where they're not allowed, but the eagles were probably the most interesting, and definitely the coolest to watch in action. In fact, you can see a demonstration of one of these trained eagles in the video below:

Other drone-control solutions involve police drones that launch nets to capture the unwelcome drones, and jamming devices that disrupt a drone's ability to communicate with its remote control, causing the device to return home. The Netherlands, however, chose to experiment with eagles instead.

Unfortunately, despite intense training, the eagles didn't always act as intended, reports NOS, citing a statement from a police spokesperson. Given these training troubles, officials worries that the eagles might not perform as expected when used outside of their training environment.

Between this possibility and a (surprising?) lack of demand for drone-catching eagles, the program is now officially shut down.

Yeah, as if there aren't enough people firing guns in all sorts of directions in urban areas already. If you really want the drone to fall (and eventually damage the property below or hurt people below), I would use something like this:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolas

Sure. A kevlar glove as-yet to be invented vs. a prop that functions in a way the birds of prey haven't dealt with in millions of years of evolution - namely that it's invisible to them and it distorts the airflow above itself, sucking them in.

When I recently visited a raptor facility at Duncan on Vancouver Island I was told that they are successfully training and employing raptors to down drones around Vancouver Airport and Victoria Harbour float plane port. Apparently the birds love it and they get well fed to boot.

It turned out it would be a lot less expensive just to put a communist approved chip inside the drone pilot's head (made by DJI) and have it report all the pilot's thoughts back to storage in China. As an added bonus, the local police get a button that forces the pilot to report to the police station involuntarily. :^}

Well at least there is proof of concept. Holland is just too safe for stuff like this. Maybe airports could use them to take out drones, but they would have to avoid getting sucked into jet engines themselves, or they would be a bigger threat dan drones. Airports do already use falcons to get rid of large flocks of birds near runways. So it wouldn't really be unprecedented.

a can of really powerful silly string ... but with real string shold foul the props "real good "!

but I love the natural approach to using eagles.... and those cute Asian rats trained to do landmine eradication... animals are not just dinner ... they are our friends ....well not a drone pilots friend

The Dutch police already thought of that. They had an option to equip the eagle with kevlar gloves. And in high-threat situations, they would be prepared to sacrifice the eagle if that's what it takes to take the drone down.

Someone remarked further down in this post that they have special protective gear for the talons (in the closed captions). As I don't speak a word of this language, I'll take their word for it, though how much protection will it yield against heavier drones...

The officer said that the these birds will not be harmed by drones of this size. For bigger drones TNO (Scientific technic reseach office) is testing special developed kevlar gloves around the birds feet. (I guess material from Ten Cate/Almelo that is used in the army)

This bird was 5 month old, and had to be trained for another 7 month to be fully operational. These birds should be able to pick up a drone with a bomb to take that away from the crowd or VIP, the officer said.

If a drone is endangering anyone, just shoot it down. The worst case scenario is that the government might have to compensate someone for their drone. And that would still be cheaper than training a bunch of eagles.

But wait. This happened in Holland. The police there are probably not permitted to use guns....

Not as easy as it might appear. With a police officers sidearm it would be very difficult to take down a drone that isn't super close. (shotgun with bird shot would probably work well at medium range) And then if it's in a crowded place, or any buildings/airplanes are past the drone, you can't really shoot em down safely even with the right guns.

Jamming devices on the other hand are probably cheaper than eagles, and safer than guns. (although even then I assume you could run into issues using them in an airport, as I assume they probably mess with all communications from all devices)

In Holland police have guns, and automatic weapons in some cases. You are confused with Britain where they use batons instead.

The Dutch civilian population tends not to use guns though, which might be the reason why nervous/trigger happy cops, school massacres and other shooting sprees are not an almost daily occurrence there.

I said "shoot it down." I didn't say "shoot it down with a high powered rifle using long distance loads."

If you used a high powered rifle the bullet would travel a mile or more. But that would be a poor choice because a single bullet would make it much harder to hit a moving drone. You would probably want to use a shotgun with birdshot. Drone hunting isn't much different than duck hunting, after all. No one uses high powered rifles for shooting ducks.

Shotgun pellets might travel 200 yards or so. In other words... line of sight.

I love it when people who know nothing about guns make snarky comments. Right?

"But wait. This happened in Holland. The police there are probably not permitted to use guns...."What's the point of your statement & who is being snarky? Again, look in own backyard, I would not say a word about other jurisdictions. The USA among other things has nothing to be proud of in relation to firearm proliferation & use.

I was a shotgun instructor for two years and a rifle instructor for three...

I'm not sure shotgun pellets go far enough or high enough to hit a drone. There's a lot of spread after only a hundred yards, depending on the choke and pellet size of course.A kid's .22 can go well over a mile. Something like a hunting rifle can shoot much farther, 3+ miles at the maximum trajectory angle.

... and anything that does hit high and powerful enough in terms of guns, wouldn't be a great choice in densely populated areas (buildings.. people...), to put it mildly. VERY different from animal hunting.

I love it when people who have no knowledge of the Netherlands make snarky comments too.

Somehow I reckon they might of already tried shooting them out the sky and it isn't that easy, especially if it's travelling at 65km/h and over 1000m altitude. Anti- aircraft weapons are what's needed, not plod with a shotgun unless it's just hovering about a bit.

Being Dutch, I'm proud of our people in blue, whom very sporadically use their gun and hardly ever use it wrongly, unlike the police in the USA that makes headlines everyday about gun use.Also we Dutch haven't have to explain to other people that guns are the best fun with your pants on, although they kill 1300 of our kids each year like Amuricans have to do.200 yards isn't far, a bad person could flick the controller of a drone just a bit, and it flies out of reach with 40mph (mavic) so birdshot isn't usable either. He/She/they prolly wouldn't wait until you try to aim at it anyway, because they want to do harm and fly their IED equipped drone from the back of their van right to where people are.And no, I'm not a card carrying NSA member indeed mr Marty, just wanting to help b*llsh*t like you want to peddle out of this world.Btw, using eagles was a bit silly to of course.

Weeterbos, totally agree, the NRA is not about freedom, possibly the most abused word in the American vocabulary, the promoted gun culture looks more like a tyranny & at the same time will preach democracy to others when their own voter turn out is always abysmal. I enjoy a quality of life in Oz where we can access almost free health care, tight gun laws, a decent superannuation system & a social security safety net & we are obliged to vote & that last point is what makes the difference.This is far closer to freedom than Marty's world.The Martys attack this & troll around the internet spreading the right wing poison & predictable mantras & deserve to be challenged.

Being Dutch myself I cannot help but notice how this promo/instruction (or whatever its purpose) video is made in our typical government low-budget fashion. Pretty sure they didn't blow the budget on making this one.

It would have been interesting if it worked out well and there were pet/working eagles around every major airport in the World in a few years. I think it could still happen. They just have to get smarter eagles. Maybe they need to make GMO eagles.

If you turn on closed captions, the police officer said that the drones of that size (in the video) don't hurt their talons but they've developed kevlar "gloves" to protect the eagles talons from bigger drones.I would be more worried about their wings.

Seems like they would also sometimes (or often?) get their feet/legs cut/damaged by the drone blades? Seems like a silly idea unless they really could do it without getting themselves injured in the process. Never mind...I see the comments about the kevlar gloves...but still. I see too many things going wrong with that. Haven't they ever heard of a shotgun?

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